Bisa Butler

MYRTLE ELIZABETH ANDREWS is the director of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art and co-editor of Black American Portraits. DALILA SCRUGGS is the Augusta Savage Curator of African American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Scruggs is responsible for shaping the museum’s exhibition programming and collecting priorities as they relate broadly to African American art, a longstanding area of strength of the museum’s holdings distinguished by its depth and range. The SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM holds one of the world's largest and most inclusive collections of art made in the United States, from the colonial period to the present.

BISA BUTLER is an award-winning American fiber artist whose vivid, life-size quilted portraits of Black individuals reimagine the medium and the genre. Working from contemporary and historical photographs, Butler recreates the scenes, animating the subjects using unique blends of colorful, patterned, and textured fabrics.